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Nederland aims for 100 percent renewables by 2030 — if not sooner

By Alex Burness

Staff Writer

Posted:
08/13/2017 11:00:00 AM MDT

Updated:
08/14/2017 12:31:25 PM MDT

Carousel operator Burt Rashbaum dances as a child rides the carousel at the Carousel of Happiness on Thursday in Nederland. The town is considering a commitment to achieving 100 percent renewable electricity by 2030. (Jeremy Papasso / Staff Photographer)

The town of Nederland is poised to become the 42nd community in the country to commit to achieving 100 percent renewable electricity by 2030.

But Mayor Kristopher Larsen says he thinks the town can reach the target much sooner than that.

"Personally, I'm arguing that we need to act more quickly," Larsen said. "Two-thousand-thirty is 13 years from now, and from what we can see with climate change and the accelerating rate of change, we don't have 13 years to wait.

"We need to start thinking much bigger than that," he added. "I'm going to argue that we should set a goal more on the order of five years from now."

Nederland's Board of Trustees meets Tuesday to consider making the commitment, and Larsen expects a unanimous approval.

Should that happen, Nederland will become the fourth city in Colorado to commit to the 2030 target, joining Boulder, Aspen and Pueblo.

Breckenridge will likely be added to that list, when its elected officials consider a resolution Aug. 22.

This is not the first time that Nederland has attempted these kinds of targets in the past — the town recently adopted a resolution supporting the Paris climate accord — but the timing hasn't often been right, said Eryka Thorley, of the citizen group Climate Together Nederland.

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"All of this started a long time ago, with many resolutions for renewable energy that have been proposed and approved by our Board of Trustees, but when it came down to actually implementing, there's always been hurdles," said Thorley, whose group pushed the current resolution.

"There's always been support in Nederland for renewable energy, but I think now we're in a different climate. Climate change is tangible, the political will is there, the technology is there."

But Nederland, like Boulder, is a customer of Xcel Energy, which complicates the town's plan to get to its soon-to-be-adopted goal.

Currently, renewables make up just less than a quarter of Xcel Colorado's total energy portfolio. Even if Xcel achieves a 60 percent mark by 2030 — a best-case estimate far from a guarantee for a company committed to coal through 2070 — communities such as Nederland and Boulder will still have to bridge a large gap to reach the 2030 target.

"We need to work with Xcel Energy to determine how to make this transition," Larsen said, "because these are the goals of the town and we're going to make it happen one way or another."

Nederland's relatively tiny population might help its cause in this case; it's much easier to transition a town of 1,500 than it is a city of 100,000, such as Boulder.

For this reason, many of the 41 communities committed to 100 percent renewables are rather small. The list includes places such as Abita Springs, La. (population 2,529), Red River, N.M. (population 477), and Greensburg, Kan. (population 771).

"One of the most interesting things we've seen has been how smaller communities across the country have been among the leaders in not only establishing these commitments, but delivering on them," said Shane Levy, a spokesman for the Sierra Club.

Of the five towns and cities in the country to have already achieved 100 percent clean energy, four — including Aspen — have fewer than 15,000 people.

"The idea of transitioning a city of hundreds of thousands of people to move off of fossil fuels to an entirely renewable electric supply can prove challenging," Levy said. "I think that smaller towns view the idea of local ownership and autonomy as a particularly powerful motivator."

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